Our deepest purpose as an organization is to provide the most accessible and engaging informal sporting learning environments to build student-athletes' self-efficacy in the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Over the last decade, a data revolution has taken place in the world of professional soccer. These days, professional soccer clubs are heavily invested in developing analytics departments that employ data scientists in order to gain a competitive edge using computer vision, statistics, and machine learning algorithms. Successful analysts must be adept in technical skills such as programming, and statistics while also possessing the soft skills to parlay their data-driven conclusions to coaches and players. While the players on the pitch portray a diverse group of individuals, the burgeoning analytics profession in sports suffers from a notable lack of diversity, particularly racial diversity.
Our overall aim is to create an educational program that merges data science with youth soccer to support the development of data literacy in young learners, while also developing their skills in soccer. The intent is to provide a new avenue for engaging informal STEM education that will empower minoritized young players and learners by giving them access to a STEM learning environment that is coupled with an activity for which they are highly motivated to improve.
The belief one has in their own ability to accomplish a specifc goal.
Believe that you can take the next smallest step. All those wee litte steps add up to big things.